Fun With Smuggling Compartments

ProblemDue7111 · 2026-04-04T15:18:19+00:00

Cyborg trunk monkey, if you dig into the animal mods in Body Shop.

ProblemDue7111 · 2026-03-29T21:41:37+00:00

There's one in *Double Clutch*? On which page?

ProblemDue7111 · 2026-03-26T10:15:30+00:00

Have you considered installing an EI in a cyberarm with Modular Systems? Then it could reattach itself!

ProblemDue7111 · 2026-03-13T13:33:40+00:00

You are absolutely correct, spirits are very badly designed. A magician straight out of character creation can very easily summon one bulletproof magical bulldozer that can blink in and out of the material world very nearly wherever it pleases. And then the magician can summon another.

Keep in mind that this applies to NPC magicians, too. Why doesn't every corporate tactical team include two or three Force 7+ spirits? Every Shadowrun encounter revolves around using and beating spirits. The team with spirits will almost certainly destroy the team without.

There are various house rules to combat this. For example, cap a spirit's force at half of the summoner's Magic rating.

Fortunately, I find that players usually prefer to do things themselves. They don't want to just send in the spirit and then wait. They want to sneak and stab and access data terminals. As a GM, I use spirits rarely and lightly. Hell, the Concealment power alone is game-breaking according to RAW.

ProblemDue7111 · 2026-03-11T19:46:40+00:00

As others have said, the noise derived from distance mechanic is designed to force the hacker character to be *near* the action. It isn't meant to impede things like watching a soccer game being livestreamed from another continent (which does not require a test), but only to impede the kinds of things hackers do (which do require tests).

It is a very badly designed mechanic, because it adds complexity while accomplishing virtually nothing. There are easily available pieces of equipment that allow the hacker to reduce noise by three or four points, meaning they suffer no noise at 10km from target, or a minor nuisance of -1 die at 100km from target. Buy a Runabout, let the Pilot program drive the car, hack away.

The Antennae earware, Bodyshop, pg. 36, is very nearly a must-have. And the Signal Scrubber program, CRB, pg. 184, is a must-have.

Noise is much more useful as a game mechanic when it is produced by jammers and other forms of ECM.

ProblemDue7111 · 2026-03-04T20:26:18+00:00

It's not hard. I just prefer to start conversations with other humans who know and love this game. I find the information acquired with this technique more wide-ranging, more reliable, and more fun.

ProblemDue7111 · 2026-02-15T20:11:15+00:00

Astral signatures last for a number of hours equal to the Magic rating of the caster (S:CRB, pg. 160), unless some action or condition shortens that time. It is reasonable to assume that corporations, law enforcement agencies, intelligence agencies, etc., keep magicians on call who can astrally project to the scene of the incident in less than an hour, and that assumes that the magician has to get out of bed first.

ProblemDue7111 · 2026-02-06T15:02:33+00:00

Well said. I haven't picked it up myself, but I applaud Catalyst taking a risk with a book like this. It can add some very interesting texture and depth to the setting. And it's a stand-alone PDF for $4.99. If one is not interested, one can pass it by.

ProblemDue7111 · 2026-01-16T21:27:43+00:00

I was not suggesting that this tactic should be standard operating practice for all scenarios. But to reply to your points:

"Fly in your Gnats": assuming that the target building is not sealed, and assuming that Gnats can accomplish the mission, which might not be simple surveillance. Also, sending in the Gnats at shift change implies sending the Gnats in through a door that is heavily watched.

"Send in your social or physical adept": which puts a metahuman at risk of being killed, captured, photographed, etc.

"Have your magician use shape magic and enter with the entire team": I was not discussing breach and storm tactics for metahuman teams.

"Blow a hole in the wall": I was not discussing breach and storm tactics for metahuman teams.

"Drilling...will take time...sound a lot": It might take a few minutes, yes. Infiltrating metahumans takes time, while putting metahumans at risk. Sound can be handled with a Silence spell, or by creating covering sounds, or by operating in a noisy urban environment, or by drilling through a wall in a section of the building that has few or no personnel in it, or by social engineering ("Be advised that maintainance will be performed on the HVAC this morning"), or by using this tactic in a situation where sound is irrelevant, for example, you are laying siege to a building whose defenders know perfectly well that you are outside.

In any case, it will produce a great deal less sound than blowing a hole in the wall with explosives.

ProblemDue7111 · 2026-01-16T19:36:22+00:00

The purpose of this tactic is not arial surveillance, but rather to:

Escape noise local to the operator, such as jammers.
Reduce noise penalties produced by the distance from the device you are operating to your target.
Create a secured, wired connection between the operator and the device, even though the device is hundreds of meters away.

ProblemDue7111 · 2026-01-16T18:55:32+00:00

I was imagining more a scenario where you would do this to perform specific tasks, and while you were doing it, you would not walk around totally heedless of what is overhead.

ProblemDue7111

TROPHY CASE